Nude Descending A Staircase

Summary

Always ready for adventure, Amy and Susan, friends and neighbors in an idyllic university town, find more mayhem than they bargained for.

While scouring the sky for flying saucers, Amy and Susan find a naked man, unresponsive, on the grounds of the museum/asylum. So begins the trouble. As the women delve into the bohemian art scene at Foothills, they end up haplessly trying to solve the mystery of the bodies that seem to appear wherever they are. Soon, not only their friendship, but also their reputations and lives are at stake. Still, their zany spirit prevails despite pratfalls and miscalculations.This quirky mystery is as humorous as it is intriguing. The tortured corridors of the museum are nothing compared to the strange art and artists who inhabit this world.

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Nude Descending A Staircase - Joyce Richardson

Chapter One

The morning Amy and I found the naked man, we were only looking for aliens.

* * * *

Suz! Amy ran up the hill of her long driveway, her small figure emerging from the dark August fog. Are you ready for a real adventure?

I peered down at her darkened house and hoped her husband was still asleep. Shit! All we needed was Donovan coming out in his pajamas and yelling at us.

Everything clear? I asked, my voice a whisper.

Clear! Amy approached, carrying a blanket rolled up under one arm.

So Donovan let you out?

Amy’s laugh was soft and sweet. He doesn’t even know I’ve gone.

I laughed too. James did turn over and grunt a bit, but he’d never guess what we were up to.

I didn’t tell Donovan either, Amy said.

That’s good! If he thought I was behind all this, he’d go ballistic.

Yep, he would. And I wouldn’t tell him any different.

Amy’s voice was sassy, a quality I had not heard from her in a while. We trotted fast beside each other in order to warm ourselves, and we were off, toward the old asylum graveyard.

We had been there before, usually later on in the day, when we could see the small stones and read the appellations. In the late nineteenth century and into the twentieth, deceased mental patients whose families wouldn’t claim them were buried in little plots on the back of the asylum grounds. The graveyard was not too far from our houses—actually there was more than one cemetery—but we preferred the oldest one, the one that contained few names, only short designations like Mom or Sis or Jake.

We didn’t plan to lie on the actual ground where the bodies were buried because it was too squishy. Instead, we spread Amy’s blanket in the clearing beside the graveyard.

We were determined that Sunday morning, as we scoured the sky above, to actually see a UFO blazing across the sky. Such an event might give our lives, if not great meaning, at least high drama.

Donovan hates you, you know, Amy said. She lay back on her red and yellow plaid blanket and gazed with eagerness at the sky overhead.

Actually, you’re the one… I said, and it was true. It was Amy who read the newspaper article about flying saucer sightings just a few miles from our homes; Amy who suggested we add some pizzazz to our Sunday morning walk by searching the sky for the things; Amy who was a believer, something I am not, not in any sense of the word.

What if one of those little green guys made me pregnant? Wouldn’t Donovan just shit, after trying for a solid year himself?

I laughed, even as Amy’s voice broke and tears filled her brown eyes.

Ever since Amy’s second miscarriage, she and Donovan had been trying and trying to conceive a child, trying so hard that I thought the poor woman was about to die of it. Her cheeky brunette beauty had turned to fragile neediness. Seeing her now, tears shining in her eyes, few would ever guess she had been the best intensive care nurse in our community hospital. It was she who kept the ward running, she who kept both doctors and patients obedient to her common-sense rules.

But that was the old Amy, who, with Donovan’s urging, had taken a leave of absence to concentrate on getting pregnant, which was why she now had more spare time than she knew what to do with.

I had extra time on my hands, just like Amy. The two of us were ripe for trouble. I was beginning a sabbatical from my job as a middle school art teacher, which was why I was restless too. Not that I didn’t have plenty to do. James and I have two boys, ages five and seven, who are full of the devil. I didn’t tell Amy that babies were not always the wondrous bundles of joy she thought they would be. She didn’t want to hear that.

The sky above was starry, though silent. I lay all the way down beside Amy. But your husband doesn’t hate me, does he? This was important to me. Donovan was the director of the university art museum, housed in the old asylum buildings. Donovan was about to become my mentor, I hoped. I really hoped.

Shhh, said Amy. We have to be quiet so we can hear them.

Hear who?

The aliens, Susan.

I didn’t know they talked.

Amy sat up and sighed. She arranged her legs underneath her hips. In the semi-darkness, with her big eyes and small stature, she seemed an eager child. Suz, I’m talking about the noise flying saucers make.

Oh. We lay on the ground and stared up at the sky once again. I watched. Amy watched and listened.

Shut my mouth, I still wanted to talk—about the museum, about Donovan.

Amy? I whispered.

Amy sighed again. Okay, Donovan doesn’t hate you. When you see him tomorrow, you’ll be impressed with how businesslike he is.

But you said he hated me.

Amy laughed. It’s not all about you, Suzie Q. Now, would you please be quiet?

She said this with such finality that I fell back upon the blanket.

And what do you think they look like, I asked, whispering, those flying saucers of yours?

They’re yours too, she whispered back.

I heard her breathing, fast and expectant. I gazed at the heavens and watched the stars, watched and watched, my eyes moving across the horizon and up into the heavens. The Big Dipper was upside down—was it always? I saw a shooting star, its tail arcing, and pointed it out to Amy who gasped.

Do you suppose? she asked. No, we’re looking for something much closer, she added. Something moving fast.

The newspaper wasn’t very specific.

I’ve seen pictures of a big bright round thing in the middle, with little satellites sailing around.

I nodded. The mothership theory.

Amy put her finger to her lips and I lay back down. We watched. We watched until the skies grew lighter and lighter and the moon set. It was one of those times when I wished I could keep the magic tucked in myself forever. I imagined us, our morning, as a painting, an impressionistic whirling of soft orange and very bright blue.

We sat up, our backs wet with the dew that had soaked through the blanket. That’s that! one of us said. I folded Amy’s blanket.

Tomorrow. We’ll try tomorrow. I do know that was Amy’s line, because she delivered it with such hope, such wistfulness.

We took the scenic route back to our homes, which had become our habit. We lived in the most interesting area in Foothills, Ohio, in a middle-class subdivision, ordinary and banal; but above us, on the hillside, loomed brick-turreted buildings, some with bars on their windows, crowned by what had been a mental hospital administration building. Now it was an art museum belonging to Foothills University. It was still spooky, in all its Victorian grandeur, and sometimes, seeing it enveloped in fog as it was this morning, I could feel the ghosts of the former patients floating around us, within us.

Our pleasure walk led us to the asylum-ground ponds, four of them, fanning out from the hospital/asylum/art museum. Since Amy’s husband, Donovan, was director of the museum, we presumed we owned the buildings, the reflective tree-shaded ponds, each connected to the other, each studded with a central island, shaped like one of the suits of cards. Amy and I were certain it all existed for our pleasure.

We should have seen something, Amy said, her voice a mournful wail. Something.

* * * *

And then something appeared.

A rusted clunker, with its motor running, seemed to rise from the morning fog beside the diamond pond. Why is it here? I asked myself, although Amy was right beside me.

Maybe they’re looking for flying saucers too, Amy answered. Although I doubt if they can see anything with the windows all misted up. Bet it’s an old Cadillac. I haven’t seen fenders like that since I was a kid.

Something’s strange, I said. Why was the car off the road, way off the road? And why was it there in the first place? And why did I believe it was inhabited, even though I couldn’t see through the windows?

Someone’s in trouble. Amy ran down the grassy hill toward the pond. She rubbed moisture from the window on the driver’s side but, as I came up beside her, I could see that the dampness was on the inside. I also heard an unhealthy choking sound—probably the motor. Amy tapped on the window, but there was no response. She tried the door.

A naked man fell out, halfway onto the ground.

* * * *

For some reason I couldn’t get the idea of aliens out of my head. I mean, what could be stranger than a skinny, bare-assed man, half in, half out of the car, his arms outstretched? In the early morning mist the whole thing was otherworldly. I stood transfixed, staring.

Amy, on the other hand, was all action. She put down the blanket, gently lowered the man’s limp body to the ground. Searching for his vital signs, she leaned down against his chest and checked the usual places for a pulse. She frowned. The man didn’t look dead, his face a bright, healthy pink—unlike his strange body, which was a light shade of blue. I stared at his privates. I don’t know why. Amy felt again for a pulse. Feeling useless, I stepped around the two of them to turn off the car’s motor.

Go to my house and call 911! Amy’s voice was sure. Gone was the wistful victim, the grownup child, and my partner in mischief. I’m going to begin CPR, but he needs oxygen right away.

I ran, although I’m not a runner. My breath wheezed and my chest was on fire. My ankles cracked and turned inward. I cursed myself for not owning a cell phone. Soon I was walking, walking fast. I was dying. I thanked the gods that Amy was a nurse, not because she could perform miracles, but because she would remain calm while I went bananas. My own students don’t even fight in front of me because they know I would faint dead away at the sight of pulled-out hair and bloody noses.

And here I was in a life and death situation. The poor man! I thought, because it was not about me. The possibility that he might be dead iced my throat and my gut. The only positive thing was happening to Amy, poor Amy, who, in this particular situation, was no longer poor, but strong and in charge.

I had not considered the prospect of facing Donovan until I approached their house. Hello Donovan, I rehearsed, running down their driveway, I know you don’t like me, but Amy’s by the pond doing mouth-to-mouth on a naked man.

No, that didn’t sound right. What the hell, if Amy could try to save a human life, then I could surely face down her unpleasant husband.

I rang the doorbell again and again. Finally, Donovan answered, looming in the doorway, dressed in short herringbone print summertime pajamas, and scowling. I have to admit he was a handsome bastard, even first thing in the morning when his dark, unshaven beard made him look like a sinister underworld figure.

Where’s Amy? he thundered. What have you two been up to?

Please, I need to use your phone. I was surprised he heard me. My voice squeaked out so softly I scarcely heard myself.

All color left Donovan’s face, and it was not until I was dialing that I realized he believed something was wrong with Amy. Amy’s all right, I whispered, but someone’s in trouble. At that moment the 911 operator came on and Donovan heard all about the man in the rusty old car who was unconscious, if not dead. I answered all of her questions, even adding that the victim was in the hands of a capable health professional, but to hurry, hurry, because I was not certain what she could do if he was as near death as I thought.

When I hung up, Donovan had his pants on, car keys in hand, and was heading out the front door. I ran to catch up. Honestly, he would have left me behind and then it would have been just him and Amy and the naked man and Amy’s plaid blanket and all the questions about why we were out there in the first place. I needed to be there.

I ran out to their garage and opened the passenger door of their Lincoln Town Car before Donovan could say anything. He glanced at me and grumbled but didn’t try to throw me out.

When we arrived, Amy was on her knees, still working over the man, thumping his chest, breathing into his face, oblivious to us, as she should be, being a nurse. I hoped I inspired as much awe when someone observed me in my profession as she did in hers. I doubted it.

Donovan gasped, probably due to the man’s lack of clothing, and he gave me a stare that said, Look what you’ve done now! At least, that is what I thought it said, but I didn’t have much time to react because the emergency squad arrived, lights flashing and sirens blaring.

Amy was replaced by male medics who lifted an oxygen tank from their vehicle and placed a mask onto the man’s face.

Amy ran into Donovan’s waiting arms. Please help me, she cried, the Amy of earlier today, the vulnerable Amy. I tried and tried, but he’s not responding.

Donovan held her and gently rubbed her back. She doesn’t need this, he said to me. Couldn’t you just leave her alone?

I didn’t answer him, because I honestly believed my friendship was good for Amy. And today? What happened this morning? Whose fault was it? All we were doing was looking for aliens.

Chapter Two

Pea-green Nudes

I fed Matt and David their Sunday breakfast of pancakes and when James woke up, I told him about the naked man as if I experienced such things every weekend of my life. James seldom listened. He did this time, though, and he did not seem happy. I also nagged him about getting a cell phone. He mumbled something about the poor reception we got in the mountains and I let it alone.

The fact that I had an interview with Donovan at the art museum at ten o’clock on Monday morning had disappeared from my memory in all the excitement. When I remembered it later—on what was supposed to be a leisurely Sunday—I knew my ass was fried.

* * * *

James was angry with me on Monday, very angry. Admittedly we were out of clean towels, but he had to understand the boys and I swim in the summertime, sometimes twice a day, and between our house and the public pool, we used a bunch of towels. Not to mention our dog, Jambo, who swam in the adjacent ponds and came home muddy. He used tons of towels, too, and his don’t always wash up well.

Have you ever heard of laundry? James asked between clenched teeth and I stupidly nodded my head.

What is it about the man I love that made me feel all goosey when he criticized me? Anyone else but James I just told to piss off. I swear I would have done the laundry right then and handed him two fluffy towels just like a hotel maid, but James claimed he had an early appointment with a student who was flunking his class.

James Prouder, Ph.D., was an associate professor of meteorology, housed in the radio-tv department. In other words, he trained fledgling weather guys and girls (usually hot blondes)—a humiliating comedown for a trained astronomer. He was also a certified tornado spotter, something I found very sexy.

I bet you don’t care that I’m late for work now. He sighed his see what I have to put up with sigh. He had forgone the shower, opting to go to work grubby, rather than dry himself on a used swimming pool towel.

To tell the truth, James’s respect for me had been eroding all summer, but I was too excited about my year-long sabbatical to care. I knew James was proud of my teaching and my paycheck; however, he was less than enthusiastic when I took two maternity leaves for the birth of my babies. And to top things off, I took this year off to paint.

But now, cross my fingers, I’d have a fellowship and a studio of my own.

It all depended on Donovan, Donovan whom I had just managed to piss off big time.

I called Amy after I was certain her husband had left for work. I watched the Lincoln leave their driveway and pass our house. Why he took the car sometimes, leaving Amy without any transportation when he could easily walk to work, puzzled me.

Is that you? I asked, when she answered, sounding odd.

Suz! Her nickname for me came out in a gasp.

Are you okay?

Donovan took the car!

I know. I saw him leave this morning.

But I have to get to the hospital.

The mental hospital? We still called it that, even though it was now an art museum.

"No, the hospital hospital, you know, where I worked."

Of course! She meant the community hospital, not The Ridges Museum where we had found the naked man. I have an appointment this morning—with Donovan, you remember—but I can take you there this afternoon, if you want to go.

Our man might be dead by then.

What have you heard? I asked, interested that she called him ‘our man.’

Not good, she answered. He’s all tubed up, respirator and everything.

Do they know who he is?

Her answer seemed nonsensical. Not yet, the police are following a few leads. But I think I might know.

You know him? My heart beat so loud in my ears I couldn’t hear myself. I paused, waiting for her reply. When it didn’t come, I took a breath and waited until I could speak again. Listen, Amy, when I’m finished with my interview, I’ll give you a call. Then we can go over to the hospital. I’ll have the boys in day care, anyhow.

Don’t tell Donovan, she said.

I drove, just as Donovan had, although I had the daycare excuse. The daycare center I used was normally for preschoolers, but since Matt and David were daycare alums of long standing, I could take them any time. The teachers were especially fond of my boys and gave them some responsibility for the smaller ones, which made them feel important. Seven-year-old Matt, with his Dutch-cut brown hair, was especially responsible; golden-haired, smiling David won all the prizes for charm. They were great kids, when they weren’t fighting, which was not today. This morning they were like lion cubs, verbally and physically scratching and clawing at each other all the way to the center. They did this in my chili-red Mini Cooper; which, at the time I picked it out, seemed perfect for children, but didn’t seem so slick right now. How I wished for a glass partition between the front and back seats of the car, the kind they have in taxis and limos, so I could let the boys fight it out without my worrying. When we arrived at the center, though, they were all smiles and charm, the little bastards.

* * * *

Walking toward the long, wide staircase, I approached the art museum slowly. I wanted this fellowship so much I suddenly felt the need to tiptoe, cross my fingers, and avoid stepping on cracks that might break my mother’s back.

No one had wanted me to be an artist. I still remember my parents’ puzzlement when they found out the spring of my graduation from Antioch College that I had not prepared to teach. I was going to paint, I told them, in London. And where was the money going to come from, my father asked. Well, I kind of assumed, since I was an only child and all, maybe they could help me get started. It could be like graduate school. Painters didn’t need masters’ degrees; they only needed to go somewhere different, like Paris or New York or London and establish themselves.

I established myself, all right, doomed to live in a small university town forever. No Paris or London for me. Antioch had been exotic and expensive enough. Dad and Mom sent me to the education department at Foothills University to get a graduate teaching degree. There I met James, got married, took a job I often hated, and had two babies whom I always loved.

I climbed the cement steps leading to the museum. Friggin’ son of a bitch! I said to myself. I was not referring to Donovan, just saying a mantra to calm my soul. Foul language is liberating for me. My fellow art students and I used it as undergraduates, just as we used marijuana. I quit the marijuana, but still swore like a longshoreman. I tried not to talk this way in polite society, but when I forgot, the results were amazing.

I walked down the museum hallway awed, as I always am, by the majestic ceilings. The huge foyer, where the museum holds its receptions, was flanked by a twin staircase. The floor was a highly-polished black and white chessboard. Moving to the Great Hall, I looked down at the original mosaic flooring, surely as beautiful as it was during its